Giving Up Graciously
by Izaranna
Summary: -AU-Shikamaru has met his match and is strangely grateful that he isn't alone in this degradation of society's intellectual capabilities. When the ship is sunk, it is best to drown graciously rather than fight futilely.


In the end, he supposed it didn't matter that Temari had absolutely no intention of telling him what was wrong with her. Her sulking wasn't getting her anywhere, and he _really_ didn't want to get involved unless he had to, and anyway, she would probably just break down and tell him what was wrong anyway. Granted, she would probably try to permanently maim him in the process, but he guessed that love meant sacrifices and this was just one of those things.

Shikamaru pondered about a lot of things while gazing at the night sky, clear and glittering stars in the heavens and a murky black abyss staring back equally as deeply as he was. In his mind, the entire cosmos couldn't hold the number of thoughts he had without exploding into a million pieces. He'd been feeling this way for the last couple of months, like there was too much in his head and that he would dearly love to unload them in a bucket and pack it into the garage to never be seen again.

The porch he sat at overlooked the entire street, lights off and residents soundly asleep. Living in a sleepy town his whole life had made Shikamaru just as prone to be ambiguously uninteresting, if not more so, than the simple-minded folk that he'd grown up with. The problem was that he had an IQ of over 200, and that really put a damper on his plans of fading into obscurity. His mother ensured it.

It wasn't until he'd met Temari that he'd truly felt that it was worth the trouble to drive four hours every morning and evening to get to and from the top university in the county. His mother had insisted and he'd felt it wise to not tell her that she was completely off her rocker, and if the current trends of petrol prices continued, the scholarship he'd gotten would be meaningless as they'd still have to pay an arm and a legs' worth just to ensure that he attended every lecture. His father just bowed his head to his mothers' obsession with having permanent bragging rights but still having her son live at home.

Shikamaru had eventually stopped bothering and then, as if the universe had been waiting for him to give up before making his reluctant effort worthwhile, he met the elven-faced dirt blonde that not only carried a metal battle fan with her everywhere she went but also tripped him and caused him to fall down the twenty steps to the ground floor. She had apologised and, after he dismissed it like as if it was an everyday thing, she snapped at him and snarkily questioned why he even bothered to exist if he found it so troublesome.

She'd then flipped her head around, her hair whipping and hips swaying as she walked out of the lecture hall. He then coincidentally bonded with her over the dismal state of the pension system, the political system and the future of their society considering what levels of stupidity their peers had sunk to, all the while staring at how she devoured two burgers, cheese sticks, a bag of fries and an extra large coke and still managed to look like she was eating in front of a court of nobles.

When she had realised that he was the most intelligent person on campus she sought him out everywhere he went, whether it was to relax or study, and by the end of a week of not being allowed to nap wherever the heck he pleased without being beaten into submission by her overbearing personality and controversial opinions, Shikamaru changed his routine and began avoiding her like the plague.

It worked for a blissful fortnight and then he began to feel irritated that she hadn't figured out his new pattern because he had always thought that she was more intelligent than that. Annoyed, another week passed before he decided that it was time to find out exactly why she'd given up on him.

Shikamaru followed the upper years to their dormitories and then checked the register to find out which college she lived in. Finding her name under the Desert Rose dorms, he walked unhurriedly to find the most annoying woman he had ever met, and he'd known his mother his whole life. Temari was sitting on a bench outside her building and the grass tickled her feet as she was barefoot and wearing her sleeping clothes, like as if she hadn't bothered to dress because it wasn't worth it. She had bags under her eyes and a cup of coffee placed beside her as she rubbed her eyes, reading King Lear with about as much interest she could muster in her obvious sleep-deprived state.

He saw her, watched her and then lazily walked to her, wishing her a good morning and voicing his sarcastic wonderment that she had the ability to be silent long enough for her mind to be quiet enough to absorb everything she was reading. She looked up at him, dazed and wondered what he was thinking coming all the way out here. He informed that he'd expected better from her before drawling out that it was alright, he was used to dealing with disappointment. She, livid as Athena, marched over to him, the grass crunching under her feet, and yanked him to her by his shirt collar and then proceeded to make out with him in the most violent, seductive and dominating way he had ever experienced.

Naturally, being the borderline misogynist that he was, he couldn't let that stand and kissed her back just as forcefully and a tad bit desperately. They never spoke of that incident again, but it always remained at the back of their minds whenever they talked to each other, whenever he walked her to her class and every time he saw her with other men. It drove them both to silent frustration and, tonight, Temari had decided enough was enough and she was intelligent enough to know that avoiding the confrontation would never work for long and that postponing it wouldn't make her any less infatuated with him.

Shikamaru picked up the phone as it vibrated in his pocket. Lying on his back and staring blankly at the sky as the wind ruffled his hair and whistled past the wind chimes hanging on the oak tree in their garden, he brought the phone up to his ear and breathed a good morning to Temari, to which she informed him that if it was daylight she couldn't really see it considering it was midnight and shouldn't he be asleep? He replied that the sun was always shining and so it was always morning, even if it was just a little subject to elaborate interpretation. He could see her in his minds' eye exasperatedly shaking her head and smiling lightly. She told him she was sorry for not contacting him for the last couple of days. He shrugged and he knew she saw it too, in their special way. She went on to say that she was tired of waiting on him to make the first move and broach the subject they both needed to get out in the open.

He wearily agreed and then sat up, propping his back against the wooden beam where his mother had marked his height every year till he turned fourteen and overshot her. She urged him to talk first silently, and even over the phone he could feel her demanding green eyes on him. He sighed and then informed her of his very precarious position in terms of emotions and his inability to bring himself to deal with them when it was simply easier to ignore them. She snapped that he'd better start talking or she'd hurt him a lot worse than even he could dream up. He breathed an I love you to her, and only because she was listening for it did she pick it up. She promptly hung up on him.

He put the phone beside him and continued staring blankly at the sky, wondering if it was really appropriate to voice feelings that one wasn't sure they were even feeling to begin with. Love was an abstract after all, and he'd always slotted people into the categories of annoying, unbearable and tolerable. Temari fell in the category that he'd left unmarked as there really wasn't any way to label his regard for her.

Three days later, she was at his house before he was and was chatting with his mother about some female thing that he couldn't be bothered to dissect. His father was slumped on the table, watching Temari and his wife converse as if they were speaking a foreign language that he had once learned but only vaguely remembered. Shikamaru wondered aloud whether this was a strange hallucination because he hadn't heard from her for three days and really, even the slightest bit of forewarning in the event of a female invasion would have been appreciated.

She wisely took the high road and smiled at him deviously, the look promising retribution and looking strangely sensual. Shikamaru was intrigued despite himself and sat opposite his father and questioned him instead. Apparently, his father stated, his girlfriend had decided it was time to meet the in-laws and had not only not informed him they were in a relationship to begin with but had also thoroughly enchanted his mother, so there was absolutely no way he could wriggle himself out of this.

Shikamaru watched his woman violently chopping red onions and fondly thought that he had been thoroughly outmanoeuvred. He was strangely a lot more accepting of this defeat than he thought he would be.


End file.
